zip(*) to transpose a matrix

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Accepted Answer

zip(*matrix) unpacks the two rows as separate arguments to zip, then re-zips them column by column. The first yielded tuple collects position 0 from each row: (1, 4). The second collects position 1: (2, 5). You get tuples, not lists. This is the idiomatic one-liner for transposing a 2D list in Python - no numpy required for small matrices.